Fire lookout · Pine County, Minnesota
Askov
Tower moved here from the Finland site in 1951; removed, and the county list says the site is now private property.
- Gone
- Private land
- Verified
Private land
No public access. Please do not trespass; view it only from public land. The county list says the site is now private property.
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower removed; the county list says the site is now private property.
Visit & stay
Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.
Access
Private land. See the warning at the top of this page.
- Road to the top?
- Unknown
Facts
- Status
- Type
- Cab on a towerAermotor stairway tower with four steel legs and a lookout cabin on topThe design: Aermotor
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- Unknown
- Height
- 80 ft (24.4 m)
- Elevation
- Unknown
- Agency
- Minnesota Forest Service, now Minnesota DNR Forestry Division
- Land
- Unknown
- Location
- Pine County, Minnesota
- Coordinates
- 46.24118, −92.72062
- Registers
- Not on a lookout register
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 10 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-mn-askov
View from the cab
What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.
This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.
Downloads about 3.9 MB of terrain data the first time.
Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.
History
Then and now
- 1951 MovedMoved from the Finland site to this site as tower 107Sources: upload.wikimedia.org, upload.wikimedia.org
- TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.
Old maps of this spot
USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 10 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
A 100-foot Aermotor stairway tower was moved to this site in 1951, where the state list numbers it tower 107.1,2 The county list calls it "the relocated first tower at the Finland site."1
A 1952 Coast and Geodetic Survey description places the spot about seven miles northeast of Askov.3 It calls the structure about 80 feet high, with four steel legs and a lookout cabin on top.3 The county and state lists both give 100 feet, which differs from the survey's figure.1,2,3
The Forest Fire Lookout Association lists the tower as gone.4 The county list says it was removed and that the site is now private property.1 No source describes what, if anything, remains there. Since the land is private, visitors should stay off it.
- Pine County fire lookout towers (PDF), Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Pine_County_Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Minnesota fire lookout towers, A-Z list (PDF), Wikimedia Commons, https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/A-Z_List-Towers.pdf (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Askov - Forest Lookouts, Central US Lookouts, https://centraluslookouts.weebly.com/askov.html (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
- Minnesota Lookouts, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/mn/ (accessed 2026-10-10). ↩
Sources
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) Gave us: name, location, county, type, status, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- central US (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site) Gave us: height, links centraluslookouts.weebly.com · No licence stated; facts only (county, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, status, height, design hints, register links). The site's own historical quotes, newspaper citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, access, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story
More about this lookout elsewhere
- Pine County fire lookout towers (PDF) (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- Minnesota fire lookout towers, A-Z list (PDF) (Wikimedia Commons) (opens another site)
- FFLA Minnesota lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Askov (centraluslookouts.weebly.com) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.